Transitions to Sustainable Fashion - a Theoretical Essay
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FROM FAST TO SLOW: TRANSITIONS TO SUSTAINABLE FASHION - A THEORETICAL ESSAY Thalita Silva Caliope, PhD Student at the Federal University of Ceará(UFC), Guest Researcher at ZTG / Tu-Berlin. Researcher at INOS (UFC) and LESS (UFC). Jose Carlos Lazaro. Associate Professor at the Federal University of Ceará(UFC), Senior Researcher at INOS (UFC) and LESS (UFC). [email protected] Abstract: The article aims to identify how multi-level perspective and theories of practice can be aligned to analyze the transitions to sustainability in fashion. The idea is to understand how transitions to sustainability are happening in wearing practices and in the fashion system. 1 Introduction Fashion is recognized by quick and constant changes, and these transformations stand out in the fast fashion, the business model that promotes cheap, fashionable and low-quality clothes and the consumption based on buy, use and discard. In this way, clothes arrive at the end of their lives faster and faster, becoming disposable and causing various environmental problems. In this perspective, sustainable fashion is a paradoxical issue, because fashion is based on consumption, change, and waste. However, Pookulangara and Shephard (2013) argue that there is the growth of a new movement: slow fashion. It seeks to mitigate the fashion life cycle by combining slow production and consumption, so the clothes last longer (Jung & Jin, 2014; Niinimäki & Hassi, 2011). Kozlowski, Searcy, and Bardecki (2018) argue that tools are needed to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable fashion system. Slow fashion is an alternative to this. Fletcher (2010) announces that slow fashion is an opportunity to start engaging with system-level issues in the fashion industry to begin a transition toward sustainability. Fashion and the textile industry are a relevant chain and understanding their dynamic processes of constant (re)innovation may allow them to develop strategies to increase their contribution to the transition to a more sustainable society. This transition represents the transformation of socio-technical systems with more sustainable production and consumption. Two approaches have been prominent in the study of transitions. The first is a multi-level perspective (MLP) that was developed to understand regime transitions, providing an overview of the multidimensional complexity of changes in socio- technical systems (Geels, 2010; Geels & Kemp, 2007). For Geels (2002, 2010), the MLP distinguishes three levels: niches (locus for radical innovations); regimes (refer to cognitive routines shared by members of a technical community); and landscape (referring to aspects of technology in the exogenous environment). Geels and Schot (2007) argue that transitions occur through interactions between levels. It is noteworthy that niches are important because they provide places for learning processes, allowing to deviate from the rules in the regime, and space to build social networks that support innovations, allowing seeds to emerge for change (Geels, 2002, 2004). It is in the niches where the transitions start. Thus, under the lens of the MLP, we proposed that fast fashion represents the fashion regime, despite the constant changes in trends, there is a demand of the chain itself for the speed to remain. In the niches, there are slow fashion initiatives that try to influence the regime and the landscape. The MLP is a model that maps the transition (Geels & Schot, 2007), so it usually gives less attention to consumption process itself, so we understand that another approach is needed, in this case, the theory of practices. Halkier and Jensen (2011) argue that it is a useful approach to analysing the complexities of consumption and how it is embodied in the relationships between social reproduction and change. From the perspective of a wide range of theories of practices, people are involved in practices, that is, in actions, so they are practitioners involved in everyday practices rather than consumers (Røpke, 2009). The theory of practices applied to the consumption focus on what people “do” and “see”, patterns of consumption integrated into the social order of practices (Evans, Mcmeekin, & Southerton, 2012). Warde (2005) argues that consumption is a time in almost all practices. Thus, for Hargreaves (2011), the focus is not about individuals' attitudes, behaviours, and choices, but as practices are formed, reproduced, maintained, stabilised, challenged, and killed. In the theory of practices, new wearing practices can emerge from the elements of slow fashion. Thus, in this way, we considered how these practices emerge and are reproduced and how this affects the consumption of clothes. This article is a working paper, and we aim to identify how MLP and theories of practice can be aligned to analyse the transitions to sustainability in fashion. This paper is organized into six sections parts to reach it: this introduction; a section about the multi-level perspective; then one about the theory of practices; the fourth section is about intersections between multilevel perspective and theory of practices; following, fast fashion versus slow fashion; next section is about transitions to sustainable fashion; finally, we proposed some final remarks. 2 Multi-level Perspective (MLP) The MLP was created, according to Geels and Kemp (2007), to understand transitions and regime changes and its basic ontology stems from the sociology of technology. There are three important interrelated dimensions: socio-technical systems; social groups that maintain and refine the elements of sociotechnical systems; and rules (regimes) that direct the activities of social groups. Socio-technical systems consist of artefacts, capital, labour, regulation, user and market practices, supplier networks, infrastructure, technology, knowledge and cultural meaning, and do not function autonomously. They are the result of the activities of human actors. Therefore, only the activities of these actors can maintain or change systems (Geels, 2004a, 2005). The stability of sociotechnical systems results from the links between the heterogeneous elements that make up the system, and such elements and connections are the results of the activities of social groups that (re)produce them. So the activities of the different groups are aligned with each other and coordinates, forming trajectories since all follow the same paths (Geels, 2002). An important aspect of the MLP is the elimination of simple causality in transitions since there is not just one cause or a single driver. Instead, there are simultaneous processes at various dimensions and levels, and the transformations of the system occur when these processes bind and reinforce each other. Also, nonlinearity and uncertainty characterise transitions (Geels, 2005). According to Geels (2004b), the MLP is a conceptual combination of two types of explanations: external circumstances and internal drivers. External circumstances are the ongoing processes in regimes and landscapes that offer windows of opportunity for news. These windows emerge when tensions occur between elements in the regime, that is when the activities of social groups are misaligned. It means that transitions happen when there is insecurity in sociotechnical systems, so it is necessary to keep them stabilised through three types of rules (Geels, 2004a). Cognitive rules that make actors look in particular directions. Normative rules, which are social and organisational networks stabilised by perceptions of mutual roles and expectations of behaviour. Regulatory and formal rules, which represent established systems that can be stabilised by legal contracts. Besides these, the fourth type of stability is the alignment between rules, since it is difficult to change one rule without changing the others. Rules and regimes provide stability in guiding perceptions and actions. These rules tend to be reproduced and in this way are characterised as the deep structure, or grammar, of sociotechnical systems. In addition to the regime, according to Geels (2005), the MLP distinguishes two other levels, and there are dynamics of coevolution in each of them, and they generally remain relatively independent. However, these levels are not ontological descriptions of reality; they are analytical and heuristic concepts to understand the complex activity of sociotechnical change (Geels, 2002). In a later text Geels (2010) emphasises that the MLP is a framework for understanding transitions that provides an overview of the multidimensional complexity of sociotechnical system changes and distinguishes three analytical levels. Niches (locus for radical innovations); sociotechnical schemes, blocked and stabilised in various dimensions; and an exogenous sociotechnical scenario. Transitions are regime changes and occur through interaction processes within and between these levels so that they do not occur easily, because lock-in and path dependence characterise existing regimes and incremental innovation in predictable trajectories orient them. The term socio-technical regime is used to refer to the semicoherent set of rules of different social groups (Geels, 2002). Geels (2006) explains that the level of regimes has three interconnected elements: a network of actors and social groups; formal, cognitive, and normative rules that drive the activities of the actors; and material and technical elements (artefacts, machines, infrastructures). Schemes provide direction and coordination for the actors, enabling the stability of the system,